Wizards and the Mirror of Emulation
by TheHolland
Summary: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU SAW SOMEONE ELSE THROUGH A MIRROR? Liam Clark learns that a prisoner named Venus Sting is after him while a strange new boy has the peculiar ability to make his scar hurt. Unbeknownst to him, there is a rumour that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened in a place he never knew existed - until he meets a tall, gangly red-haired boy through a mirror.
1. Wizards and the Mirror of Emulation

**Wizards and the Mirror of Emulation**

 ** _Book One, Year Two_**

 **LOOK BEYOND YOUR WONDERS**

 _What Would You Do If You Saw Someone Else Through A Mirror?_

In two very similar dimensions, Liam Clark realises his parents can't always be there for him and wishes he had someone else to keep him company, unbeknownst of his cousin who wishes he had a family that accepted him for who he is. Whilst the Chamber of Secrets has been rumoured to have been opened, Liam gathers from a suspicious young man that a prisoner who broke out of jail named Venus Sting is after him and a strange new boy has the curious power to make Liam scared of him. But it doesn't stop there ... in the mix of it all he meets a tall, gangly red-haired boy through a mirror.


	2. The Other Boy

CHAPTER ONE

 _The Other Boy_

Somewhere in the vast countryside of London, encased in large wide walls where ivy hung unchecked across its face, stood a once-handsome manor that appeared nothing more than an abandoned building. Its windows were boarded, part of the double door, which was chipped and crushed, was broken right off its hinges, and the house itself radiated an incredibly unhealthy perception of danger; there had even been a small wooden sign hammered before the rusted wrought iron gates that said, quite plainly, **DANGER.**

The people of Forest Town didn't dare defy it, for every single one of them knew all too well of the tale behind it. They called it "Butcher's Hollow," since long ago a butcher, who didn't have the best of attitudes, had a son who had wandered beyond its creaky gates. The butcher went searching and never returned, nor had they seen his son ever again.

Everyone was happy to agree that Butcher's Hollow was just too strange; it would even come as a shock if you just happened to stumble upon it. However, no one could even begin to fathom just how strange it was. Butcher's Hollow was in fact not abandoned. The house had only _looked_ abandoned because of an enchantment that had been put on it.

An enchantment? Yes, the house was under a spell to appear as though no one lived in it. The enchantment also ensured the manor had been balanced between one world and another. What _other_ world, you would ask? A world where owls were messenger birds, even pets. A world where brooms and shoes fly. Where people were more likely walking about in cloaks. Where there, tucked away from the eyes of those who thought odd occurrences were coincidence, was a magical wand. This world existed in the forest of the manor, but what existed in the forest was but a mere village called St. Bridget's.

No one but the inhabitants of this manor would know that Butcher's Hollow lay in between Forest Town and St. Bridget's (and none from the residing location knew the other existed). The two places were unlike each other in many ways.

Forest Town was home to individuals who drove cars to work everyday and had to make sure they had enough money to pay for their water, electricity and food. Nothing much was exciting about their everyday lives. As the name implies, Forest Town was a very leafy suburb where the houses, no matter how large they were, had been closely packed together. And even though they had such close neighbours, only a few befriended each other and that few often judged others in the neighbourhood who did nothing short of strange.

St. Bridget's, on the other hand, had been a rather small village where houses of all shapes and sizes had been scattered across a parcel of evergreen land. Everyone was friendly to one another, and they knew all too well that the ruckus that howled on a weekly basis sounded from the baker's cottage, where the baker's delicious concoctions had been tampered with by his meddlesome two children (who managed to bother only the grumpy man three blocks down). No one would blame them, however, as many houses had a tendency to explode in a magnificent display of sparkling colours because many of the children had fiddled with their parents' wands.

Still, with all the noise and joyous rowdiness of St. Bridget's, the only thing separating the two places had been Butcher's Hollow, and the only people who knew about it was Mr and Mrs Clark.

And Mr and Mrs Clark owned the manor.

The Clark Manor, which only took the facade of the abandoned Butcher's Hollow, had been much more lively than what people saw. Ivy only spread where Mrs Clark wanted it to, and the windows were far from boarded. The door was fully intact and its oak surface had shun brightly even on the dullest days.

No one would believe that this place could even look like Butcher's Hollow. The gardens were green with a pond that spluttered with fish, and a large patch where Mrs Clark tended her bulbous lilies and her lavender-blue catmint. The manor was encircled by a forest that, after a few tiresome minutes of walking, led right into St. Bridget's. Mrs Clark was grateful for the trees. They covered most of the Clark garden. If it hadn't been for them, Mr and Mrs Clark would have to put up with a wide open space that would start to look even more tedious if they planted more flowers. She especially loved them in winter, when leaves pampered the ground in beautiful beds of brown, red and yellow. Also, it meant more work for Mr Clark.

Mr and Mrs Clark were neither unhappy nor where they ever a grouch. Whoever met them always told them that they were a delight to meet, and the amiable pair liked to think that there was never such a thing as negativity. It became a mystery as to how the Clarks kept so happy. Mrs Clark was an ordinary woman, who was thin and small with bright green eyes and thick red hair – no more ordinary than usual. Mr Clark was tall and thin, with dark blue eyes and curly brown locks – the only thing peculiar about him was his constant knack to wear spectacles he didn't need.

The question of how two very bright and ordinary people became so famous was a high topic. They hadn't just been friendly ... they helped put an end to the greatest dark lord of their time. Mr and Mrs Clark were a certain kind of people called "wizards", and wizards had a wand and the knowledge to know just enough spells (and just enough spells saved the world). Most unfortunately, for ten years, this event ripped them away from the most important thing to them: their son.

His name was William who, at his infant age of one, had sprouted the same curly brown hair and blinked with the same dark blue eyes as his father. And it was not short after the child's first birthday that Mr Clark thought "William" was too long of a name, thus he shortened it to Liam. He subsequently found that "Junior" suited the little boy best, as he was morphing more and more into a mini-Mr-Clark than anyone.

The same dark lord they helped get rid of had taken them away from one-year-old Liam, and for ten long and painful years they had gone without seeing the light, barely even remembering their child's face. They had been beaten and tortured to the last of their wits, but they never gave up hope in ever seeing him again. And not too long ago, their wish had come true.

The last they could recall before the door opened, and they stumbled out to grasp the fresh air, had been a long sleek sheet of oily hair tied into a ponytail. They didn't have much time to recognise their saviour because, as weak as they were, they bolted up to their son to save him; their captor had an agenda to follow, and it involved the murder of their eleven-year-old son.

Liam hadn't known who they were, but he was smart enough to realise that the two people who had gotten in the way of his death had been his parents. He didn't have much trouble getting comfortable with them either.

It was because of this that they decided to bypass any means of recovery and take Liam on a holiday, just to get to know him more. Mr and Mrs Clark had planned Liam's first holiday before the incident happened. They knew they had little time to spend together before he would be off to his second year of school, and Mrs Clark would not allow him to miss a day.

Liam caught his first glimpse of his new home the week before his birthday. Because no one had watched after the manor in the last ten years, a dusty waft hung thick in the air. Mrs Clark had set everything to work; the brooms waltzed across the floors; the dishes doused themselves clean; the cupboards were all polished and buffed; and Liam was partly alarmed at the many sheets and duvets that scudded from room to room. Mr Clark tried dressing himself like a ghoul in one of the sheets, but Liam, who spent an entire year with ghosts and an annoying caretaker, was hardly frightened.

He managed to bring a smile to Liam's face, something he had forever framed in his head. Perhaps it was that they had been away from him for ten years, but Mr and Mrs Clark had a constant urge to remember every good thing that happened to the family – particularly to Liam – from that day on. They didn't want to miss a bit of his life. He had already lived ten years without them. Ten years that they missed.

Mr and Mrs Clark were now proud enough to say that they knew their son had been slightly taller than average. Apart from the brown hair and blue eyes, his face was thin (like Mrs Clark) and his feet were already too big for an eleven year old (yet another thing he adopted from Mr Clark). What the Clarks were most grateful for was the fact that Liam took his one most odd feature more of a gift than a burden. Liam had a scar that cut into his forehead in the shape of a bolt of lightning. From the caretakers he had lived with (who, although Liam never knew up until his acceptance letter, were wizards as well), the Clarks learned that he had never asked a question about it. The scar set him apart from all the other kids his age, and he accepted that difference long since.

The scar often hurt after Liam had dreams of a green and red flash, but apart from that there wasn't a bad thing about it. There was, of course, the day of his parents' freedom, which was the only other time his scar hurt.

Liam had a very rocky life. Although he enjoyed it with his caretakers (Mr and Mrs Powell), there had never been a day where he didn't imagine what his real parents looked like (and never did he think he would be seeing them after). He knew he was different, but he didn't know how. More than thrice had Liam been caught doing something he never meant to do, but the result of which was usually so coincidentally strange that not even he knew how it was possible.

His most prominent moment was when the school he attended before age eleven had somehow found a way to blame Liam for their school trip to the zoo turning into a bus-rafting sail over a river. Cruising at the back of the bus over a deep river whilst the driver frantically spun the wheel back to the road was perhaps the most amusing thing yet, but the trouble Liam got into afterward ranked the event higher than mistakenly turning the most disliked teacher's hair blue.

Liam was grateful to get his acceptance letter to Hogan before he got expelled. Apparently he was the easiest to blame when the English teacher's hot mug of coffee suddenly turned into steaming briny fish water. As humorous as it was watching him swell like a bullfrog whilst reeling a goldfish from the depths of his #1 Dad cup, the headmaster had sternly warned Liam's caretakers that if he stepped one more foot out of line he would be thrown out of the school.

Curiously enough, an owl had swept by that evening leaving a letter on the dining table, and Liam could remember just how excited he was when he found out he was a wizard. The emerald words on the yellowish parchment did nothing to justify this, but it did state the truth. He could remember it so well:

 _HOGAN SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

 _Headmaster: Fredrick Glumberry_

 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards, Master Augur)_

 _Dear Mr Clark_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogan School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books an equipment._

 _Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl no later than 31 July._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Elaine McDonald_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

Liam had since been able to meet both those professors at Hogan. Professor McDonald had been the Deputy Headmistress of the school. She had also been the Transfigurations teacher, which was a branch of magic that focussed on changing the form of an object to another. Liam's first impression of her was that she wasn't someone to mess with, for she had a very flinty face that looked as though someone had pinched her nose until her features looked very mousy and hawkish. To top that off, her eyes were pale grey and steely so that it emphasised that she meant business.

Professor Glumberry, on the other hand, had ironically been more comfortable company. There had never been an occasion where Liam would agree that his headmaster was the best teacher to be around, but Glumberry had changed that. He was a tall and thin elderly man with long white hair and a long white beard. He wore round spectacles that made him look even more humble than he first appeared, and had a fascination of the colour green that stretched beyond Liam's comprehension. He had blue eyes, that Liam noticed was similar to his, and a scar that ran from behind his left ear down to his collarbone (which he had only seen upon their meeting at the end of the year).

The one thing that Liam could agree on was that if it wasn't for him asking Glumberry to move houses, he would be suffering for the rest of his school career. At Hogan there were four houses: Wolfhowl, Scorpiosting Blinderbowl and Phoenixdan. Blinderbowl was the yellow house where all the hardworking and humble students had gone. Wolfhowl was the blue house and was for the smartest and brightest. Phoenixdan, the red house, accepted those of whom were brave. Liam would have wanted to be in any one of them except Scorpiosting. Scorpiosting was the green house, and they accepted the cunning and ambitious. It also happened to be the house in which the Dark Lord Valindor (or Mr Who) had been Sorted into.

Mr Who – which was the name everyone gave him out of fear – had attempted to kill Liam and his parents ten years ago, and it was a curious thing as to how they all managed to survive. That was the very same night Liam got his lightning scar, and the very same night Mr and Mrs Clark had disappeared. The entire family became famous because the Dark Lord's failed attempt had also been his downfall, which meant the Wizarding world had been safe at last.

Apart from that night, Liam had never met Mr Who, but he heard stories about him and knew that this world was better off without. However, he had felt his presence. Glumberry had explained that, even though he may be weak, he was still alive and he would try and do anything that would bring him back. And one particular wizard had taken that as an excuse to kill William Clark. Accordingly, Liam is the "only" thing standing in between Mr Who and his journey to his new reign, and Ronan Droge had attempted to act upon that.

Ronan Droge, the recently late Minister of Magic – working under the Prime Minister of Magic, Eric Cornel – had been the face of the Ministry. He was a tall, handsome young man with dark eyes and a chiselled face. Droge changed the way Liam perceived people. He could never really know someone unless he knew everything about them. The man planned to kill him, and he nearly did if it hadn't been for his parents and – he would rather sleep on a bed of needles than say this were true – Professor Wilber Wolverhampton.

Professor Wolverhampton was the only teacher who truly hated Liam – for a while he believed that the professor tried to kill him. Liam suffered an entire year being told what to do by him. Wolverhampton didn't hesitate throwing threats about expulsion in his face, and he certainly gained pleasure in bossing "famous William Clark" around since he had been Sorted in the house he hated most: Scorpiosting. Wolverhampton had been the head of Scorpiosting, and that gave him the liberty to give Liam as many detentions as he wanted.

"You hungry, Junior?" Mr Clark's voice reeled Liam's mind back to reality. Staring around, he found himself deep within the padding of his pillows in such a warm state he thought he might have fallen asleep. Liam nodded in response and his father smiled. "Well, your mother's nearly done with dinner. I promise her cooking will put seafood paella to shame."

Liam scoffed, "Thanks, dad."

He felt his mind falling into a numbing state as his father vanished behind the door. Junior. He loved that name. Whilst half the world thought he was Will – a name he sorely hated – and the other thought Liam, the name he thought that defined him most had simply been "Junior". Although Liam had reserved that name for his father only, there had been other names he went by. His only friend at school liked to call him "William", but Liam supposed it was because she had been too reluctant to use jargon that nicknames hadn't existed to her.

Tessa Williams was her name, and everything from her head to toe had screamed out intelligence. She was the brightest witch in Liam's year. In fact, Liam was slightly convinced that she might have had more common sense than most of the sixth years. She had a bossy attitude about her that Liam didn't mind because she tended to put that side of her away when she was around him.

Tessa had a small round face, long red hair and the most extraordinary pair of eyes he had ever seen. They captured him nearly every time she would look at him, which he admitted freaked him out. They were green with gold specks and were rather brighter than any usual eye, so it almost seemed as though a light was gleaming through her pupils.

When Liam ruined his only chance of getting friends at his new school (by telling off the snobbiest twins he ever had the privilege to meet), Tessa was the only one who stepped in. The funny thing about it was that Tessa was in Phoenixdan, and the whole Hogan populace thought anything against the revelation of a Scorpiosting and Phoenixdan student being within a one centimetre proximity of each other.

Had it occurred to Tessa, Liam never knew. She had ignored every single thought about Liam being a Scorpiosting and put every bit of her effort into befriending him, even when he told her off. Eventually, he couldn't figure out why she would bother and decided he ought to be nice to her back. It was the least he could do.

It was mainly because of her that Liam decided he ought to do something about his house. He hated Scorpiosting and wanted more than anything to be in Phoenixdan. Tessa had made sure that by the end of the year, the Phoenixdan students had accepted Liam as part of the red house. So he asked to move, right in front of everybody. And he was told he could, so he did.

"Boys! Dinner!" came his mother's voice from downstairs. Staring, his mind elsewhere, Liam slid off his bed, tore open the door and strolled along the hall.

Although he had never been here before, he felt at home in the dim warm glow of the lights. Even though every hall and room was all but foreign, he felt comfortable and safe. Everything around him made him feel that way. The oak-panelled ceiling glistened brightly at him. The carpeted floors and wooden walls kept him at peace.

He had to stop on the landing just to decide which way to go next because the house was too big. However, following the waft of Mrs Clark's dinner, he went through the archway. His mother, who was dishing out lamb shanks onto three plates, looked up and smiled at Liam upon his arrival.

"Have a seat, dear, I'll be done in a minute," she said, and Liam did so. The table looked much better now that it had been dusted and cleaned. He was rather shocked when he first saw it, he'd never seem such a thing as a thundercloud-table. The most extraordinary dining decor he'd experienced had only been at Hogan, which had a ceiling enchanted to imitate the weather outside and candles that floated above head.

He got to enjoy numerous meals there, even though he sat alone at the Scorpiosting table. Ignoring the jeers and mockery from the mouths of the McElroy twins, Liam would peer over to the Phoenixdan table and enjoy Callum Thompson's usual games with Beck Lavery and Simon Faulkner. The three of them were noted to be the most mischievous in Liam's year. Callum had a small face and short black hair, beetle-black eyes and he had a tendency to smile whether in grim situations or not. Beck Lavery had umber, dark yellow-brown skin and was notably the smallest, but that only made it easier for him to sneak about the castle. Simon Faulkner, on the other hand, was tall and had curly blonde hair. Liam was convinced that at some stage the kid would be as big as a boxing champion.

Of course, Liam couldn't always sit alone. The McElroys found some way to ruin his fun. Adrian and Dmitri McElroy were by far the worst people he had ever met. Liam never let them bring him down, but he hated the fact that he couldn't go a day without seeing them. Even if he was lucky enough not to see them throughout the day, he was likely to be sitting near them during classes, dinner and he had to come back to the Scorpiosting common room everyday. To make it worse, Liam roomed with Adrian and not even the green hangings around his bed could keep him out of his business.

The twins looked so alike that Liam would have mistaken one from the other, if it hadn't been for the fact that they had different hair colour. They both had long faces, pointed noses and pale green eyes. Whilst Adrian had brown-streaked blonde hair, Dmitri had blonde-streaked brown hair. It satisfied Liam to know, however, that if somehow both their hair mysteriously disappeared, people would start thinking Adrian was his sister instead.

They were most likely one of the very few people who were upset Liam escaped his near death. The twins were firmly convinced that if they couldn't have the best Ayers player since the 1970s, no one could, especially not Phoenixdan.

Ayers. A game he loved yet one that brought back such a terrifying memory. He had Ronan Droge to blame for that. Before Tessa, Liam had no one to turn to, and that's when Droge took his opportunity. From the very first term to the last, Droge befriended him, fooled him – he even bought Liam the fastest and newest edition of Ayers flying shoes – only to turn around and stab him in the back. Tessa tried to tell him about Droge, and so did Wolverhampton but he had been so consumed in his trust in Droge that he didn't see just how much in danger he had been in.

Droge had the school compete in an Ayers Challenge. Ayers was a sports played on a pair of shoes that sprouted wings so that one could fly. There were twelve players and five balls. two shooters a team, one has to score with the ball called the Runner – which was the size of a hockey ball and happened to randomly fly in the opposite direction on its own accord – and the Base – which had no magical properties whatsoever so that you had to make the effort to fly when it was passed to you. Then there were four Batters – who aimed to hit away three balls called Beaters – and six Fielders – who made sure the Base got to the Base Shooter.

The only person allowed to score with the Runner is the Runner shooter himself, and the only person allowed to score with the Base is the Base Shooter. The Batters can not intend to hit a Beater towards a player, specifically in the opposing team. Players may not throw neither Base nor Runner at a person in intent to injure them. No player can purposefully bump into another player to knock him off guard, especially when he or she has the ball. Players may not use any vulgar language, neither in body nor verbally, toward another player.

The points were dependant on the ball and what post one scores through. Scoring a goal through the Minnie – the smallest post – with the Base and Runner cost fifty points. Scoring through the middlemost post – the Medio – with the Base will earn the team another fifty, but because the Runner tends to, well, run it is worth a hundred points. One would be incredibly, unbelievingly and remarkably mental to even attempt to score through the highest post. They called it the Soarer for a reason, because it was so tall that the clouds covered it. If one were to score the Soarer with the Base they get two hundred, and with the Runner they get five hundred and fifty. Either way, the game would end immediately if they scored through that post.

Liam, in order to prove he was a better Phoenixdan than Scorpiosting, had attempted to score the Soarer in his match against them, and because he couldn't reach it he cost Scorpiosting the game. And because the post was so tall, Liam fell out of the sky almost half frozen. He spent two months in the Hogan hospital wing just to thaw out, with the additional concussion and numerous broken bones.

Ronan Droge had all the Ayers teams compete in this Ayers Challenge, and at the end he promised to reward the team and the most valued player. Liam, who was not given the title of 'best Ayers player since the 1970s' for no reason, was Scorpiosting's most valued player, but he turned down Droge's gift and instead asked if he could change house to Phoenixdan (because if the Minister of Magic had the power to take him out of the school, why can't he have the power to change houses?). Professor Glumberry had permitted it, but Droge was not happy as his "gift" was his way of simply killing Liam. Liam would never find out what he wanted to do, and he wouldn't try look into it, but he knew that if he hadn't turned the offer down he would be dead.

"You okay there, Liam?" his mother asked.

Liam looked at her blankly for a moment, then said, " Yeah. Why?"

"You look a bit tired," she said.

"I'm fine, mom," said Liam, smiling.

Suddenly, a pungent smell of frog wafted through the air and Liam turned his head to his father, who had walked in covered in green goo. He had a smile on, and hardly seemed to notice the substance oozing down his face when he walked into the kitchen toward his wife.

"Good lord, Thomas!" Mrs Clark yelled.

"Calm down, I'm going to wash it off," said Mr Clark, grabbing a cloth from a hook above the sink. "I'll be back in a minute. Don't eat without me."

"What's the occasion?" Liam asked. "You look rather happy." Liam didn't expect them to remember, they had been gone for the last ten years of his life anyway. In a couple of days from now it would be his twelfth birthday ... and the first birthday he would get to spend with them in the last ten years.

"Oh, nothing ..." Mr Clark winked at him. "Just harblindibs, Junior!"

" _Harblindibs_?"

"Yes. _Harblindibs!"_

And without another word, Mr Clark left the room.


	3. Talking to Hedwig

CHAPTER TWO

 _Talking To Hedwig_

 _"BOY! SHUT – THAT – BIRD – UP!"_

Harry, for the fifth time this week, woke up by Vernon Dursley's relentless clattering on the door. His uncle, with the additional barks of ire, had the budding potential to wake more than just the dwellers of number four, Privet Drive. Harry could recall Mrs Figg, their neighbour, asking whether they had adopted a wild beast, for which the Dursleys had claimed they found a stray dog and wished to send him to the animal shelter. How they managed to weasel their way out of that one, Harry didn't know, but he was willing to say that a lady with four cats in a house reeking of cabbage would fall for anything.

 _"I said_ – shut that _ruddy_ bird up!" bawled Uncle Vernon through the keyhole of the door. "Shut it up or I swear I'll wring it in the neck 'till the three sixty degrees runs its limit off!"

He was talking about Harry's snowy white owl that now sat humbly in her cage. Harry named her Hedwig, and she was a gift to him from his friend Hagrid, who was too large and big and his beetle black eyes were perhaps the only thing seen through his long shaggy mane of hair and his wild, tangled beard. Hagrid was the Keeper of Keys at Harry's school, Hogwarts, and was notably the first person to ever give him a birthday cake – the Dursleys didn't even bother remembering Harry's age.

Sighing, playing with one of Dudley's tennis balls he managed to nick off his mounds of toys, Harry replied, "It'll be difficult to explain why you've got a dead owl in the dustbin, won't it ...?"

Harry needn't wait in anticipation. He knew the Dursley wouldn't even dare think of anything strange and unusual, and explaining to the waste collector why they had an owl among Dudley's leftovers ranked high with everything relating to Harry.

Uncle Vernon didn't respond, but the vague shadows Harry made out from under the door told him his uncle was still there. Speechless, dumbfounded ... Harry would have paid to see his purple face fall stupidly in hard concentration but he wasn't going to unlock the door. As much as he may be regretting it now, Uncle Vernon stayed true to his word – and more so when angry, so the likelihood of his pet's survival would be thin if he allowed his uncle into the comforts of his room.

Harry looked at Hedwig. She had been pecking away at the cage bars trying to find a way to pick the lock with her beak. She looked that way for the past few weeks, captured and tortured by the steel bars of her cage. The Dursleys' new rule since Harry came home was that all his belongings from his freak school stayed in his old room – the cupboard under the stairs – and Harry was allowed to keep his owl upstairs with him so long as she never leaves her cage.

Which is _why_ Uncle Vernon keeps waking up in the early hours of the morning.

"She's _bored!"_ Harry said. "If you could just let me –"

"Oh no!" growled Uncle Vernon. Harry could imagine his face swelling angrily. "I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work! Not with me! No, no, no, you're going to keep that bird away from _normal_ civilisation, you hear me! Now, I'll be downstairs and I better not hear that stupid owl of yours over the television!"

"You won't."

Staring under the door, Harry waited until he could hear Uncle Vernon stomping down the stairs before he got up to stroke Hedwig.

"Not that I care. You deserve a little time outside, don't you, Hedwig?" he said softly, poking his finger through the bars of the cage to brush the puffs of her snowy feathers. She gave out a hoot, and no matter how gleeful it had been, Harry's heart wrenched. His owl, who longed for just a little glide among the clouds, was entrapped behind the bars of this silver jail, and Harry had no power to free her.

Uncle Vernon kept the keys to her cage and Harry was not willing to break it open with a spell even if he knew one that could. Underage wizards could not do magic outside school, and it was that one rule the kept Harry away from turning the Dursleys into little rats so that he could keep them in a cage whilst he enjoyed the luxuries of their home.

In his next few moments of silence, another bang came on the door. Sighing, wondering what Uncle Vernon wanted now, he muttered, "She isn't making any noise!" Harry's tolerance for the Dursleys ran short in the first few weeks of the holiday; he hadn't even bothered turning around when he responded.

"What were you doing in my game room?" came his cousin Dudley's voice. Dudley was the Dursleys' son who had been pink and porky for as long as Harry could remember. He was blonde and nearly achieved his father's neckless reputation, but he certainly did not fall too short under Uncle Vernon's bad temper.

Harry cast a look to the tennis ball now laying in a mound of an old jersey that once belonged to Dudley, and grinned.

"Lost my way, didn't I?" Harry replied, smugly. "Someone who has to put up with your thick mind will get a little dazed." Silently sniggering to himself, Harry waited for Dudley to reply. He took some solace in seeing Hedwig look at him with a bright glint of relish in her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" questioned Dudley sharply.

"I wonder how Piers deals with you ... or is he just as dopey?" Piers Polkiss was Dudley's best friend who was scrawny and had the face of a rat. Harry had no trouble seeing Piers being as dopey as Dudley, the boy was like his cousin's henchman, prepared to do whatever he was ordered to.

"Fine! If you won't tell me then I'll ask mummy –"

"Never took you as the type to say "mummy", _Dudders,"_ commented Harry.

There was a bang at the door followed by a loud set of footsteps down the stairs and Dudley's yelling at his mother about what Harry had said. Perhaps Harry should have been afraid of what his Aunt Petunia would say about it, but twelve years living with the Dursleys had him accustomed to the behaviour he received. Besides, Harry still had his little secret. The Dursley didn't know that he wasn't allowed to use magic outside school, so he could threaten them with spells all he wanted.

He flopped back on his bed throwing the tennis ball up and down, half expecting his aunt and her horsey face to appear behind the door next. When she had not come, Harry felt a dominant surge of freedom. No one would bother him until he made the effort to go outside. Still, it struck Harry as ominous that the house had gone silent. Uncle Vernon should be yelling at the TV, Dudley should be throwing a tantrum, and Aunt Petunia usually started making snide comments on the neighbours' gardens.

"Strange, isn't it, Hedwig?" Harry asked, a smiled on his face. "D'you think the Dursleys have left –"

BANG!

 _"Dudders!"_ Aunt Petunia wailed through the blare clattering of pots. There was a rough shuffle, another dropped object and a revelation that broadened Harry's smile; Dudley managed to injure himself ... for a change. "Is my little Icky Diddykins all right?" From the sudden outburst that followed after, Harry was certain Dudley was not all right.

Still, the possible fact that Dudley might have a swelling welt was not enough to get Harry out of his room. Staying locked behind the door left him to think about the one place he missed most: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He could still vividly picture the castle with its secret passageways and its ghosts; he could even say he missed the classes (although perhaps not the Potions Master, Severus Snape).

Life with the Dursleys was tedious. Harry couldn't get mail by owl, or eat banquets in an enchanted hall. He couldn't sleep in a four-poster bed in a tower dormitory, or visit the Gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin near the Forbidden Forest. Harry most certainly could not play Quidditch, the most popular Wizarding sport (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on a broomstick).

Harry couldn't figure out how he was related to the Dursleys. Harry was small and skinny, with green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy. He had round glasses and a peculiar lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

It was the scar that set Harry apart, even from wizards. It was a small little hint of his uncanny past, the reason Harry had been sent to the Dursleys doorstep eleven years ago. The Dursleys had told him that he got the scar in a car crash that killed his parents. But it had not been a car crash that took the Potters' lives.

Eleven years ago, the greatest Dark sorcerer known in history, Lord Voldemort, whose name witches and wizards refused and feared to utter, had barged into the Potters' home and killed Harry's parents. Harry, himself, would have joined them but he had somehow survived and – no one knew how or could understand why – Lord Voldemort was destroyed and Harry escaped with nothing but the scar on his forehead.

So Harry had to live with his dead mother's sister and her husband, both of whom did not tolerate anything strange, which just happened to define Harry's whole life. Which is why he spent ten years with the Dursleys sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs, slaving around and getting nothing but Dudley's old clothes, being forced to think that he should be grateful to his aunt and uncle for that. And in all of those ten years, Harry couldn't understand why he kept finding himself in very strange situations.

That was, of course, up until Hogwarts wrote to him, and he took up his place at the school never missing a day back at the Dursleys. He enjoyed almost every single day at Hogwarts, but now he was back with the Dursleys and he was treated worse than ever.

Harry's birthday was coming up but he didn't expect anything to come, not even from his best friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, who he missed more than Quidditch. He hadn't gotten a letter from either of them all holiday, even though Ron had promised he would ask his parents if Harry could some stay over. Hedwig had tempted Harry multiple times. Hooting away in her cage made him desperate to unlock it and send her off with a letter to Hermione and Ron, but he wouldn't risk expulsion from Hogwarts.

Harry continuously reminded himself that he would be stuck with the Dursleys forever if he had been expelled from Hogwarts, although he couldn't help but wonder if it had all been a dream. He got nothing to tell him that it wasn't just a figment of Harry's imagination, not a note from Hagrid or anything from Hogwarts; Harry would have even been happy to see something from Draco Malfoy, his archenemy. But there wasn't a single hint of owls in the skies of Privet Drive, and barely anything strange had happened anymore, so Harry was sure no birthday wishes were coming when the time came.

In any fact, the Dursleys wouldn't be the Dursleys if they ever remembered Harry's birthday. Never did they once celebrate it nor did they acknowledge that the day was of any importance. And this year, Harry would be spending his birthday locked up in his room pretending he did not exist because a man named Mr Mason would be coming over as a potential business partner to Uncle Vernon. His uncle was hoping to get out a drill order from the man as his business, Grunnings, made drills.

Harry was certain the only time his birthday was ever celebrated was before his parents died – nearly eleven years ago.

He would be lying to himself if he said he enjoyed every day at Hogwarts. Towards the end of the term, Harry came face-to-face with the dark lord Voldemort once again. The experience was terrifying, and Voldemort was more than determined to regain power. For a second time, though, Harry managed to narrowly escape Lord Voldemort's clutches, but even after, Harry remembered his livid face and wide, mad eyes, wondering where Voldemort was now. Was he lurking about trying to devise another plan to come back to power, or had he been more determined to get to Harry first –

GRUMBLE!

Dudley's tennis ball slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor with a small thud; Harry's stomach had roared with hunger. Only now could he feel just how hungry he was, and Harry couldn't figure out what he was risking more: starving to death or becoming Dudley's punching bag for the afternoon. With a moment's thought, Harry sat up, looked at Hedwig, scooped up Dudley's ball and hid it someplace he would never find it, unlocked the door and slowly crept into the hallway towards the stairs.

The divine smell that invaded his nose nearly made Harry abort his mission; his stomach was threatening to growl again, which would certainly alert the Dursleys of his sudden appearance. He didn't want any of the Dursleys finding out that he had finally come out of his bedroom, and he didn't feel like telling them that he was hungry because he would have gotten a slice of bread and a clump of almost-mouldy cheese instead of whatever Aunt Petunia had cooked.

Carefully, and as quiet as a mouse, Harry crept down the stairs. At the landing he had to check and double check that he could make it to the kitchen without being seen. From what Harry could see, the kitchen was empty, which meant his window of opportunity was looking wider. After one last scan, Harry lightly swept across the hall and found himself in the kitchen. He barely noticed his mouth watering when he spotted what lay on the counter.

Perhaps it was his hunger, but the plate appeared to be in the limelight of the radiant afternoon blaze. Upon it, glazed golden brown, had been an array of sausage rolls and pork pies, and beside was a plate of freshly baked brownies.

As quickly as he could, Harry took a handful of sausage rolls, a handful of brownies, a few pork pies and stuffed them all into his jacket pockets. And as quickly as he got in, Harry was out of the kitchen, his hands in his bulging pockets. Harry slowly crept his way back to the stairs, praising his quick and clean escape from the Dursleys when he heard something from within the living room. Harry could just make out what was said; it was a news report.

 _"... Police report that Sting is armed and incredibly dangerous, so civilians are advised not to allow their children out until further ado. We would further advise that you stay in doors and to call the emergency hotline should you see him anywhere near your neighbourhood."_

"He's certainly a scary looking fellow," Harry heard is Aunt Petunia say.

Dreading the prospect of so, Harry crept back and peeped into the living room, managing to catch a glimpse of the television from where he stood. What little of the headline Harry could see from behind Uncle Vernon in his arm chair read out:

 **VENUS STING HAS ESCAPED ...**

From prison, Harry gathered. Below it was a photo of what Harry assumed was a man. He could not tell from the long mane of matted and sordid brown hair, and had it not been for his wild listless eyes, Harry would not have known that the convict had a face at all. Whatever prison this man came from must have been terrible, no wonder he escaped. Harry tuned his ears to listen.

"What's the ruddy police up to if they haven't caught this lunatic yet?" he heard his Uncle Vernon say. "Sitting around doing bloody nothing, that's what!"

"I'm sure they've got a plan –"

"If they had a plan, Petunia, they'd give us a little more than just news of a homicidal madman escaping prison! They haven't even told us which prison he's escaped from! He could be coming up our road any minute now!" said Uncle Vernon.

"I'm hungry!" bellowed Dudley, who had been lying on the floor fiddling with another one of his broken action figures; there had been a large bump swelling on his forehead, but Harry would not have noticed it if it hadn't been a shade darker than his usual skin tone. Must have been when he injured himself, Harry thought. "Can I have one of the snacks you made?"

"Later, Dudders," said Aunt Petunia, although her attention was more fixed on the television.

"You know if only certain circumstances led to certain people ending up in this lunatic's way. That would mean said certain person would be out of our way ..."

Harry didn't need to think twice about that statement. The thought hit him the moment it was said. Despite his prior urgency to get back to his room, Harry slouched back up the stairs barely in much of an appetite even though his tummy relentlessly disagreed with him. He got into his room, thought twice of making the effort to lock his door, and when he finally did he emptied his pockets out onto his bed and began munching on one of the pork pies, absentmindedly.

There was no reason why this struck Harry at all. None that he could find, anyway. Harry knew the Dursleys would do anything to get rid of him, so then why did he feel so offended now? Had it been that now he heard the truth. The Dursley always implied that they wanted nothing to do with Harry and his strange life, but they had never said it aloud. They often associated him with unlikeable things but never did they admit to wanting him gone. There have been threats on numerous occasions and various versions of how much they provided for Harry, but never has he heard them utter anything along the lines of "we don't want you here so leave."

What if they were in that situation? Trapped on Venus Sting's path with no escape and nothing to defend themselves as the convict held up his gun and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger? They wouldn't know how it felt yet they were so bold to point it out. Harry wouldn't have felt an ounce of pity for them. None at all.

The terrible truth, though, was that without the Dursleys Harry would be stuck in an orphanage. It was a place he certainly did not want to go to but, given the current situation, was looking better than the Dursleys' home everyday. He had never felt so lonely and excluded in all his life, perhaps he would have more company in an orphanage. Considering Harry's entire life consisted of him being cloistered up in his room, kept in isolation behind the mundane walls of number four, Privet Drive, that was saying something.

"Some family the Dursleys are, hey Hedwig?" Harry uttered. He was in such a bad mood that he forgot how hungry he was; his tummy growled but he took no notice. "I wonder what kind of childhood Uncle Vernon must have had to be that mean. You know what he said about that convict on TV? He said 'if only certain circumstances led to certain people ending up in that lunatic's way. That would mean said certain person – me – would be out of their way' ..."

He kept quiet, half expecting an answer. But when his mind clicked onto the fact that he was talking to his pet owl, he sighed and nearly mustered enough will to laugh at himself.

"Why did they have to be my only family – surely my dad would have had a brother or sister or – or cousin ... someone nicer than the Dursleys at least," said Harry. "Don't I have a grandparent somewhere ... a godfather ...?"

Hedwig hooted, a loud hoot that brought the smallest hint of a smile on Harry's face. He had some odd feeling that she was listening, and that was her way of sympathising.

"I need a family who cares for me like a son. One who would treat me with love and got me gifts and cards when my birthday came around," said Harry. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, his mind lost in thought. Amass the boiling hatred for the Dursleys was a thought of himself with his mom and dad, standing and smiling just as he had seen through the Mirror of Erised. Then he remembered the many other people he saw in the Mirror. His family, all with similar eyes and noses and knobbly knees, shun back at him through it and it left him to think why he was left with the Dursleys. Of all the members in his family, the only ones alive could not have only been the Dursleys. There had to have been at least another aunt and uncle.

"Hedwig?" Harry called. She hooted. "Do you ever wish that you had a family like that? A family who cared for you, loved you and treated you nicely? A family who didn't mind you being a wizard, who accepted you for who you were and who celebrated your birthday when it came?"

She hooted again, and this time Harry scoffed. He looked at his magnificent snowy owl and couldn't have been more happy to know that she accepted him for who he was. She was his family. I wish she wasn't a bird, though, thought Harry.

"Sometimes I wish I wasn't so alone, Hedwig," Harry said. "I wish I didn't have to slave around for the Dursleys and be Dudley's punching bag. I wish I had someone I can relate to, someone I can talk to." In his last few moments of silence, Harry sat up, took a sausage roll and gulped it down. "Ron and Hermione haven't been talking to me. I don't know why, but my birthday's coming up and I hope they'll send something over. I don't care how small, just something. Something that tells me they still care."


End file.
